Excavators are required to notify underground facility owners in advance of their excavation activities and to describe and communicate the geographic area of those activities to the underground facility owners. The geographic area so described is commonly referred to as “the dig area.” In turn, facility owners (which, as used herein, may include facility owners, operators, and/or their designated representatives) are required to determine if they own or operate any underground facilities at an identified dig area. The location of those underground facilities, if any, which exist within a dig area, is marked using paint or some other physical marking system, such as flags. The application of paint, flags, or some other marking object to indicate the presence of an underground facility is called a “locate.” The marks resulting from a locate are commonly called underground facility “locate marks.” Underground facility owners may perform locates with in-house employees or choose to hire independent contract locating firms to perform locates on their behalf as their designated representatives.
Currently, excavators may communicate with facility owners through “one call centers.” These one call centers are generally owned, controlled, or funded by underground facility owners, such as telephone companies, cable television multiple system operators, electric utilities, gas utilities, or others. One call center operations may be managed by a non-profit entity or outsourced to a for-profit firm. Excavators are required to notify one call centers in advance of their excavation activities and identify through a “locate request” the dig area where individual excavating activities will be performed. Locate requests consist of information supplied by the excavator to the one call center regarding the specific geographic location of the dig area, date, time, purpose of excavation, etc. The locate request, in turn, requires activity from an underground facility owner to perform a locate operation in the specified dig area.
One call centers may receive locate requests from excavators via electronic delivery or verbally through a telephone conversation between the excavator and a human operator working for a one call center. Whether communicated electronically or verbally, excavators must describe the planned geographic locations of dig areas. This description is ultimately reduced to text, which, along with other data about a locate request, is communicated to the appropriate underground facility owner or owners responsible for locating any underground facilities within the dig area so described. Textual descriptions of dig areas can be very imprecise as to exact physical locations. In addition, addresses which are provided may be unclear, not yet assigned, or only indicating cross streets and vague descriptions of the extent of the dig area.
On occasion, information provided in the locate request is supplemented by the excavator, who travels to the actual dig area and physically marks the dig area in order to physically delimit the actual area to be excavated. These marks are commonly made using chalk or paint, and are generally known as “white lines.” In some states, white lining the path of excavation may be required by the responsible regulatory body.